Wes Harrington takes unusual career path

IOWA CITY - From computer science to home building and now to finance may seem an unusual career path, but Wes Harrington says each past experience has helped him in the next.

“If you look at my resume, it may look disjointed,” he said. “But I see it as moving from the best opportunity to the next best opportunity.”

Harrington, 34, was one of thousands of students to graduate from the University of Iowa this weekend. The Urbandale native earned his master of business administration degree from the Tippie College of Business and will move to Chicago to become an investment banking associate with BMO Capital Markets.

He graduated from Urbandale High in 1995 and studied computer science at MIT. After college, he launched an online sales site before becoming an IT consultant with a Texas company, working in Texas, California and Boston.

After more than two years at that job, Harrington's parents asked him to join the family business, Harrington Homes, a custom home-building company in Des Moines. It was something he had written off growing up because of his interest in computer science, but after initially saying no, Harrington decided to move home. It offered him a chance to learn the ropes of running a company, something in his plan.

“I always knew that I wanted to be in business, to run a business, to own a business,” he said.

Harrington worked various jobs at the company, founded by his parents in 1986, before becoming president at the end of 2005. In 2003, the company did $3.5 million in business - typically building five or six luxury homes each year. Harrington wanted to operate the business differently, by developing its own building plans and building in more neighborhoods with those designs, rather than strictly custom homes.

The company did almost $9 million in business by 2006-07, but in late 2006 it started to feel the slowdown brought on by the dipping real estate market and economy.

Harrington had been thinking about studying finance, after a night class at the UI MBA program in Des Moines fueled his desire to attend business school. The timing of the housing slowdown helped him make his decision to switch gears, as his parents downsized the company and returned to their custom-building operation.

Harrington started in the MBA program in fall 2009. His parents continue to run the family business, and things are slowly improving in home building, he said. But Harrington said his passion lies in business and the financial markets, and he's excited by the next opportunity.

“I saw all the connections between the various parts of finance and that really got me interested,” he said.